IUSSI, BRITISH SECTION (International Union for the Study of Social Insects) AUTUMN NEWSLETTER, SEPTEMBER 2006

IUSSI, BRITISH SECTION (International Union for the Study of Social Insects) AUTUMN NEWSLETTER, SEPTEMBER 2006 Officers of the British Section of the IUSSI President Prof. Lotta Sundström, University of Helsinki, Department of Ecology and Systematics, Division of Population Biology, P.O. Box 65, Helsinki, FIN-00014, Finland Tel: +358 (0)9 191 57695; Fax: +358 (0) 9 191 57694; E-mail: [email protected]; Webpage: http://www.helsinki.fi/science/ants/ Contact her about: anything and nothing, inspiration, leadership Secretary Dr. Mark Brown, Department of Zoology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland Tel: +353 (0)1 608 1627; Fax: +353 (0)1 677 8094; E-mail: [email protected]; Webpage: http://www.tcd.ie/Zoology/text/brown.htm Contact him about: newsletter, meetings, general information Treasurer Dr. Robert Paxton, School of Biology and Biochemistry, The Queen's University Belfast, Medical Biology Centre, 97 Lisburn Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT9 7BL, UK Tel: +44 (0)28 90972127; Fax: +44 (0)28 90975877; E-mail: [email protected], Webpage: (http://www.qub.ac.uk/bb/people/paxton/paxton.html - under construction) Contact him about: membership, subscriptions to Insectes Sociaux Webmaster Dr. David Nash, Department of Population Biology, Institute of Biology, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen East, Denmark. Tel: ++45 3532 1328; Fax: ++45 3532 1250; E-mail: [email protected] Contact him with: information and suggestions for the web site Meetings site http://www.zi.ku.dk/iussi/meetings.html Who’s who site http://www.zi.ku.dk/iussi/newsletter.html Election of New Officers of the British Section of the IUSSI After a call for candidates to take up the reins of the Section in the 2007-2009 period, the following nominations were received: For Section President – Andrew Bourke For Section Secretary – Nigel Raine and Seirian Sumner For Section Treasurer – Rob Hammond In the absence of competing nominations, Andrew Bourke and Rob Hammond are duly elected as the new President and Treasurer of the British Section, respectively. They will take over from the current officers after the 2006 Winter Meeting. In a sign of a healthy democracy, we will now run an election for the post of British Section IUSSI Secretary. Votes must be sent to the current Secretary, Mark Brown ([email protected]) before October 15th. I will announce the result of the election by email prior to the Winter Meeting. 1 Important Information for the Winter Meeting 2006 This year’s Winter Meeting will take place on Friday 8th December, at the Natural History Museum, London. Our kind host is Paul Eggleton. The meeting will start, as normal, at 10am, with members and non-members welcome to arrive from 9:00 onwards. Please go to the reception desk of the museum, where local hosts will direct you to the lecture theatre. There will be the normal breaks for coffee/tea/lunch, and the meeting will end around 5pm and then move onwards to a local hostelry. Costs for the meeting are unchanged from last year (Members: £10, £5 students; Non-members: £15, £7.50) and prior registration is not required. This year our guest speaker will be Dr Doug Yu, of the University of East Anglia, who will be talking to us about his work on ant-plant symbioses. If you wish to give a talk or a poster at the meeting, please contact Mark Brown ([email protected]) with a title as soon as possible. There will be the usual student competition, so if you are an undergraduate, MSc or PhD student, please state so in your submission. We do not require an abstract. Directions to the Natural History Museum are as follows: Bus (routes 9, 10, 49, 70, 207) and tube (Picadilly, District, Circle lines; get out at Gloucester Road or South Kensington). From Heathrow Airport take the Heathrow Express or tube. From Gatwick Airport take the direct train to Victoria railway station and then the tube. For further information on the venue, please contact Paul Eggleton ([email protected]) Report from the Spring Field Meeting in Ireland, hosted by John Breen Stephen Martin We all probably agree that as biologists we now spend far too much time in front of our computers rather than out in the field. So John Breen provided the opportunity to redress the balance by offering to organise a field trip to the Burren, an area of outstanding natural beauty on the west coast of Ireland. After a brief exchange of e-mails a compact group of entomologists gathered in the Burren for what turned out to be an excellent experience. The weather could not have been better and John introduced us to some of the best field sites the Burren had to offer. We were all particular impressed by John’s ability to arrange a Dolphin escort for our boat trip to the Aran isles (of Jumper fame). There were many highlights, which included the Cliffs of Moher, the highest sea-cliffs in Europe, various Turlough’s (tarns whose water levels rise and fall with the water table), a wide range of orchids including bee, butterfly and frog, Father Ted’s house on Craggy island and the excellent food, drink and, of course, company. John’s students did a brilliant job, often behind the scenes, moving people around making sandwiches and generally ensuring everything ran smoothly. Everyone went home with a great suntan, collection vials full of specimens and great memories. Many thanks go to John and his team. News from Washingon – IUSSI Congress 2006 The British Section of the Society was well-represented at the XV Congress of the IUSSI, with one Plenary Talk (our past president, Nigel Franks), 6 Symposia (organised or co-organised), and numerous talks and posters. Reports below from those members given grants by the Section to aid their attendance give a real flavour for what an exciting meeting it was. A number of important events occurred and decisions were taken at this year’s congress. 1) the British Section bid for the XVI Congress (2010) organised by Koos Boomsma and David Nash (Copenhagen) was successful and so the next Congress will be hosted in Copenhagen. I’m sure that Koos 2 will welcome help in the organisation of this major event in the ensuing years. Congratulations from the Section to them for putting together a superb bid! 2) the new officers of the International IUSSI are as follows: President, our own Koos Boomsma; Secretary General, Joan Herbers. Johan Billen remains Journal Editor, Chris Starr remains Archivist, and our own David Nash remains Webmaster. 3) the International Society has agreed to revisit its structures and organisation, in order to formalise its status and prevent future problems with respect to Congress organisation, as well as to increase its scientific and international profile. [This decision requires agreement from each section, so this will be an agenda item at our Winter Meeting] 4) the first Hamilton Award was given to Professor Ross Crozier, for his lifetime work on the genetics of social insects 5) members with journal subscriptions can now get online content. A pdf file describing how to achieve this is attached along with the newsletter. Reports from the Washington Meeting Margaret Couvillon Over 600 scientists (self) assembled for the 15th IUSSI Congress in Washington D.C. The conference began with a welcome reception in the airy rotunda of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and concluded with a banquet at the Omni Royal. Throughout the week, I found myself thinking about several themes that ran through the conference. In his opening remarks, President Walter Tschinkel (University of Flordia) stated that two things brought us together: passion and beauty. I heard echoes of his sentiment throughout the numerous symposia, posters, and lectures. We are passionate about our species, awed by their beauty, and inspired to learn about them. Another strong theme, stated on the first morning by E.O. Wilson (Harvard University), is that the foundation of the study of social insects will always be natural history. He delivered this idea in his Keynote Address through the retelling of his own successful journey in the field. Natural history is our common language: from observations arise questions, and this synergy drives our field. I found the symposium Social Recognition to be extremely interesting, not only because of the overlap with my own studies, but because I appreciated how the coordinators organized the talks to parallel the field. Recognition, of which there is a context in all areas of organismal life, is divided into three components: expression, perception, and action. Speakers, using proximate examples of their work and study organism, dealt with each of these ultimate components. In social recognition, an individual expresses a specific label to be assessed in encounters. Studies on the invasive Argentine ant (Linepithema humile), as compared to the native Argentine ant in South America, demonstrate that a genetic bottleneck occurs when a small, invasive population moves into new territory. Analysis on the resulting supercolony demonstrates how genetic and chemical processes involved in recognition are integrated to produce behaviour. During the perception component of recognition, an evaluator matches the expressed cues against a template. Most studies previously dealt with a phenotypic matching that did not include individual recognition. However, studies on the ponerine ant (Pachycondyla villosa) show that, in the interest of stable dominance hierarchies and subsequent reduction of conflict, queens are able to remember another individual for more than 24 hours. The action component depends on the degree of dissimilarity between the cues and the template. If the template and the acceptance threshold are static, then recognition should proceed in a consistent, predictable pattern.

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